How Your Health Care is Affected When You are on Workers’ Comp

Worker’s compensation is a type of insurance that covers workers against illnesses and injuries that one gets while at the workplace. Worker’s compensation is designed to give reimbursement for medical expenses or loss of wages as a result of an injury or illness at the workplace. This cover is in addition or alternative to the private health insurance covers that people get for themselves and their families. As such, there are not many people that claim on the worker’s compensation insurance. This then could mean that private health insurance and employer health insurance may have an impact on the worker’s compensation.

Employer-provided health insurance
This type of insurance is designed such that there is cost sharing when it comes to medical expenses. There is no cover for the loss of income as a result of an injury or illness at the workplace. One would expect that given these conditions, many workers would do worker compensation filing. According to a research done in Michigan, many workers thought that the filing is not free. Employers might discourage filing because of the benefits implication and may also victimize those that choose to file.

An employee might also not know or able to prove that they were injured at the workplace. As such, following up on worker’s compensation may require the services of a law firm like Oxner + Permar, LLC. They specialize in workers compensation claims. Having to have on these expenses beforehand with no surety of compensation may be what keeps employees from making claims.

National Labor Statistics survey
Looking at the National Labor statistics survey, there is information about employers offering health insurance and information on workers compensation filings. The results from the surveys suggest that 55% of workers file claims. It also says those who file are more likely to be in unions than those that are not in unions, and that those injured work at smaller companies. The reports also show that filing of the worker’s compensation depended on whether the employer offered health insurance.

The survey report says that how a worker acquires their health insurance may have an effect on whether they file for the worker’s compensation or not. Those that acquire the insurance through public assistance have fewer finances to follow up on worker’s compensation and that they may have less information on the filing procedures. The effects of health insurance on workers compensation on the benefits that the workers are getting from the employers in relation to the cost associated with filing the claims.

Health insurance affects positively on the probability of filing claims. The effect of health insurance on workers compensation is directly dependent on whether it is offered by the employer or it is privately sourced. This, therefore, means there should be efforts aimed at employers to encourage filing.